


Natalia Soto. 1989-2067.

by forgetcanon



Series: Fully Informed / MIA Walters [5]
Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Deathfic, Gen, Happy April Fool's Day, Natalia Dies, This exists only to hurt people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-01
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 04:00:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/743955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgetcanon/pseuds/forgetcanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The death of a loved one is never going to be easy. Knowing that doesn't make it easier. It just means that you know it's going to be harder the next time it happens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Natalia Soto. 1989-2067.

**Author's Note:**

> Non-violent death of the non-descriptive sort.

This is not something that will happen soon, or happen quickly, which is fortunate. Most people don't want death to come to them soon or quickly, because most prefer that death not come to them at all. But there it was. It was arriving at the Natalia Soto station after many delays and transfers, brushing off its lapels, folding its newspaper. And, like the person designated to pick up the unfavored aunt, The Spine was waiting.

Natalia slept. The Spine watched. The nurses didn't speak to him unless he spoke first, which suited him fine.

Sandra visited, and Natalia laughed until she ran out of breath, which didn't take very long anymore. Sandra had the decency to wait until Natalia was asleep before she cried, clinging to The Spine. (She'd long ago gotten over her shyness with her best friend's life-long lover.) They talked, about the funeral of course, and then about other things, before they realized that Natalia would soon not be around to enjoy books and movies and all the things which Spine and Sandra were bound together by.

There were others. Colleagues, childhood friends, college friends, acquaintances. Rabbit visited every day, very briefly, so that he and Natalia could trade barbs. Six dropped by irregularly, and often only stayed for a few minutes. Wanda visted once, to inform her that all of her belongings still in Walter Manor had been collected.

Natalia twitched a hand. In a younger, stronger woman, it would have been a dismissive flap. "The Spine gets to decide. Whatever you guys don't keep, please donate."

She grew weaker. The Spine could practically see Death picking up her briefcase. When Natalia woke, she no longer asked how long she had been asleep. She no longer asked many things, except, "Spine, darling, come here," or "talk to me, please." 

She didn't ask for much, but she had a lot to say. Sometimes she hallucinated, reassuring people that weren't there. Sometimes she mumbled things to him, half-broken sentences that must have been part of her dreams. Sometimes she spoke clearly, half-smiling as she spoke of her impending death.

"Spine," she said one day. "This might not be much comfort for you, but when I fall asleep I want you to take a few minutes to look something up. It begins something like 'you should want a physicist to speak at your funeral.' I want it to be read, when I die."

"Talia," he said quietly.

She smiled. "You don't have to read it. But I want it read. Or printed on the entrance tickets- no, they're not tickets, I don't know what they're called. Doesn't matter. Please? Make sure."

"Yes," The Spine said. "I will."

She never danced about it. She always said 'when I die,' no 'ifs' or 'passing away.' She was going to end and she knew it. She'd known he would live for decades, centuries, that he'd fall in love again and have his heart broken many times more. She always had been a realist.

Another day. "Spine?"

"Yes?"

"I think you know this, but I want it said. I don't regret a moment I've spent with you."

Another day. "Spine?"

"Yes?"

"I don't think I'm going to wake up this time."

The Spine had no idea what to say. What do you say, what are the last words you say to someone, when you don't want to say goodbye?

"I love you," she said, smiling.

"I love you," he replied. They weren't enough, but they were acceptable.

The Spine had to stop himself from following when the orderlies took her body away. She wasn't in it anymore. She wasn't anywhere. He stood in the empty hospital room and tried to figure out what to do next. It took an astonishingly long time for him to remember that he had to go home and tell the others.

Wanda made the funeral arrangements. Natalia's body was cleaned and burned by people that The Spine had never met and never would, and the ashes were delivered to their door in an urn. The Spine stared at it, lifted it. It was so light.

Wanda gently took the urn from him and asked where he'd like her to stay until they scattered her ashes. There was no suitable place in the HOW. The mantle wasn't right. She couldn't be relegated to some closet or end table.

Wanda waited for ten minutes for an answer, then she silently took The Spine's hand and led him to the graveyard.

"She can stay here," she said, putting her on the grass to the left of Annie and Peter Walter V.

Wanda stood with him for an hour, saying nothing.

"Are you planning on staying here all night?" she finally asked.

"Maybe," The Spine said.

Wanda went back into the house. Rabbit came out soon after. For once, the copper automaton was able to stay quiet, standing shoulder to shoulder with him.

(Rabbit wanted to point out that this was why he drove them away, this is why The Spine shouldn't have opened his core to a breakable creature, but he wouldn't. He couldn't do that to his brother. Rabbit was a selfish personality, but he wasn't so selfish that he'd say "I told you so" about this.)

\--

The Spine spent the next few days in a sort of haze. He looked at his closet and had no idea what to wear. He looked at his guitar and had no idea what song to play. He looked at Natalia's things and had no idea what to keep.

HatchWorth helped. He threw clothes at The Spine, clothes that matched, even. He distracted The Spine as best he could. He found boxes to keep her things in, until The Spine was ready to sort through them.

The funeral was on a sunny day. They rented out a small place, not wanting to hold the ceremony in the Walter Manor, no matter how amused Natalia would have been by the carrots biting everyone's ankles as they crowded around the gardens. 

The Spine had been the one to type the brochures, neatly summarizing her birthdate, her deathdate, and the essay she had wanted printed on it. He chose his favorite pictures of her, because he was allowed that small measure of selfishness. He went out before the ceremony and bought a boquet of red carnations. Her favorites.

The ceremony itself wasn't the longest or the shortest he'd ever been to. He spoke, keeping it short.

"Natalia Soto was one of the best people I've ever known. It was a privilege to know her. I know I was not the only person she changed." 

Later, he thought that his deliverance was rather stilted and more awkward than he would have liked. At the time, it was what he could manage.

Sandra told a story about when they were teenagers and Natalia would collect shells at the beach, only to leave them in a pile at the water line instead of keeping them.

A coworker praised her skill and her willingness to tackle any issue. Another praised her kindness and her delicacy. The Spine poked Rabbit on the wifi and they both took turns mocking the second one. HatchWorth joined in when the coworker mentioned The Spine as being part of her work.

Afterwards, very few people approached the Spine. Sandra did, of course.

"I'm... I don't know. I think I already told you, at the hospital, how much you meant to her."

"You did. I never knew she collected seashells like that."

Sandra cried. The Spine took her to get a drink of water.

A few coworkers tried for an "I'm sorry for your loss." The Spine thanked them. A few friends tried to talk about how much Natalia loved him. He thanked them.

By the end of it he was sick of thanking people. He quietly stepped into the kitchen of the place, realized it was full of caterers making the small sandwiches that were omnipresent at business meetings and funerals, and went out into the alley behind the place.

'You okay?' HatchWorth asked.

'No,' The Spine said. 'Please leave me be.'

HatchWorth did.

\--

The Spine couldn't visit the ocean except from a distance. Sand and metal plates do not mix. So, Sandra got roughly half of Natalia to take to San Francisco and spread in the bay. The other half was buried in the Walter family cemetary. A simple grave, no more than a shiny stone with the words, "Natalia Soto, 1989-2067" engraved into it.

A bench that could support The Spine's weight was placed nearby. In the beginning, it was remarkable only because The Spine used it as a weaning tool. He limited the time he was allowed to spend dwelling on her to the time he spent sitting on that bench, and then he slowly cut down on the hours he spent there.

A single thing of interest did happen, though. A copper automaton visited, moseying his way over to the bench as though it wasn't his end goal. He skittered his way along it, sitting as far from the grave as possible. He cleared his throat.

"Hello, Natalia," he said quietly. "I never-ver mentioned this, but."

He paused for a long time.

"It was you. W-well, not you. I never predict-dicted you. B-but. Someone or other. Someone that'd stick around, be his girl, for as long as she could, and then die. Y-you're the first. I hope you're the last-last. I don't think he could-could survive another one of you."

Another long pause. Rabbit considered the grave.

"You humans. 'S like gettin' attached to a dog, honestly."

\--

Three months later, The Spine started opening the boxes that he and HatchWorth had closed. Most of the clothes went straight back into the box to be sent to St. Vincent de Paul. He hesitated for a long moment over a dress.

"What is the story?" HatchWorth asked.

The Spine smiled. "She took me to a thrift shop, just for fun one day. She wanted to see what she could get me to dress up in. I still have pictures, I think. I ripped a pair of leather pants, and she got this dress."

It was brown, polkadotted, calf-length, with a built-in petticoat. She had worn it for most of their anniversaries.

"Keep it," HatchWorth advised.

The Spine considered it.

It went into the box. He wanted someone to wear it, but he didn't necessarily want to see.

He kept most of her books, sorting out textbooks from fantasy and sci-fi. Somehow a yearbook of hers had wound up in the manor. He texted Sandra, and Sandra asked what year. After hearing the year, Sandra advised him to burn it. 

He tossed it to Rabbit. Rabbit sat down and looked through it, found a picture of Natalia with braids and braces. Ah, that was why it had wound up here. She had wanted to show him that, but had never gotten around to it. They had been distracted by HatchWorth's hatch spewing cereal boxes. Not the cereal, just the boxes. Off-brand boxes, too. Crispy Rice instead of Rice Crispy. The Jon had made a carboard set of armor out of it and challenged Steve to a duel.

Rabbit hesitated for a long, long minute before he tossed it in the fireplace and blasted it.

Her shampoo and makeup went straight into the trash. The Spine deliberated over the perfume.

"You're allowed to keep something," Wanda reminded him.

"I'm keeping the books," The Spine said.

"Y-yes, thing-ing-ings that can be-be reused. It's-it's like keeping a wrench." Rabbit sighed. 

The Spine thought about it. He kept the larger bottle, tucking it on a high shelf in the library. She would have liked to know it was there, waiting to be brought down and used.

\--

Ten years later, a woman at a science convention talked to him for about an hour about blue matter and its ability to change reality in fairly impossible ways.

Her name was Ashley. He got her number and she got a promise that he'd call.

He did.


End file.
